"….The power to tamper with our humanness, of
course, presupposes that the current dispute over germ line versus somatic
cell gene therapy is resolved in favor of germ line. One cannot hope to
influence the course of evolution without altering the genes not only of a
large and diverse segment of humanity but of their descendants as well.
Otherwise, the intervention will not "take" . But assuming that
germ line techniques become permissible, not to mention successful, then a
startling array of possibilities is opened up.

It might, for example, become possible to create
specialized subspecies of humans-‘metahumans"- who are better adapted
to certain tasks. Astronauts on interstellar voyages would benefit if they
were able to subsist on a plentiful, nonperishable food supply. Thus we
might want to outfit them with termite digestive genes so that they could
live on a diet of cellulose. People who work in desert climes might weather
the dryness better if their if their genome were judiciously enhanced with
certain key genes from the camel or the prairie dog. The list could go on,
of course, but the point is that it is almost assuredly going to be possible
to produce human hybrids with capacities far beyond the norm. Clearly, such
a technology will involve ethical questions that dwarf virtually anything we
have had to deal with before. Begin with the question of consent. Who would
be subject to such procedures-only those who volunteered? If their germ
lines were altered, would their children be considered
"volunteers" as well? What about status? Would underwater farmers
with webbed feet and gills be considered as fully human as the rest of us?

Beyond such novel questions lie the possibilities for
misuse. One can easily imagine armies of genetically engineered soldiers
with hides impervious to shellfire, or with aquiline eyesight and gorilla
like strength. How can we ensure that the ability to hybridize people does
not get into the hands of an unscrupulous chief of state?

On a broader level, suppose as a species we deemed it
desirable to hasten the wholesale evolution of homo sapiens into a still
more sapient form by seeding today’s population with the genes for greater
intelligence. Presumably, and without the tedious process of natural
selection, the entire species would become vastly brainier in several
generations. Or we might imagine similar programs to make us taller, more
agile, more resistant to disease. For that matter, a host of chimeric
possibilities come to mind. Why shouldn’t humans realize the dream of
flight? The addition of a set of bird genes-or the stimulation of latent
avian genes already within our genomes-might provide us with wings,
feathers, lightweight bone structure, a more aerodynamic shape-indeed, the
full array of organic paraphernalia necessary to fly. Fanciful, but
certainly possible.

It is to be hoped, however, that those who may someday
control the managed evolution of humankind will put the technology to
worthier use than to turn us into a race of ospreys. We might, for example,
want to banish from our essential natures the "reptilian brain," a
hangover from our distant past that is thought responsible for much of our
aggressive and bestial behavior. Or we might well consider it useful to
eliminate on a macro scale the potential for disease. We could in a few
generations do away with certain mental illnesses, perhaps, or diabetes, or
high blood pressure, or almost any affliction we selected.

The important thing to keep in mind is that the quality
of decision making dictates whether the choices to be made are going to be
wise and just. True, most nightmarish scenarios ignore the innate good sense
of people; common sense and an instinct for fair play, backed by the power
of federal laws, it is assumed, will enable us to do good and protect us
from doing ill. Nevertheless, the body politic still works its will through
its representatives in government and the judiciary. These representatives
in turn are influenced by powerful forces in the professions, business, and
academe. The rather inglorious way that the scientific and administrative
elite are handling the earliest fruits of gene therapy is ominous. Can our
leaders be trusted in the years ahead to steer the spirited steed of
molecular biology in the right direction? Will they handle the wisdom about
to be entrusted to them with the high-mindedness and noble idealism that it
deserves? Or will they be unable to clamber out of the low, crass bayous of
the spirit so familiar in leadership circles nowadays.

It is a problem that, interestingly enough, is genetic.
We humans have evolved intellectually to the point that, relatively soon, we
will be able to understand the composition, function , and dynamics of the
genome in much of its intimidating complexity. Emotionally, however, we are
still apes, , with all the behavioral baggage that brings to the issue.
Perhaps the ultimate form of gene therapy would be for our species to rise
above its baser heritage and learn to apply its new knowledge wisely and
benignly. It calls to mind once again Jim Watson’s unabashed desire to
wield gene therapy as a tool to improve on the evolution of human nature. As
he said, only half kiddingly , when asked what the future holds, "We’ll
make ourselves a little better. That’s what we’ll do. We’ll make
ourselves a little better."

Jeff Lyon & Peter CosnerCLONES
WW Norton
Pub

"Cloning is the first serious step in becoming one
with God."

Richard Seed

"Last year Dolly the cloned sheep was received with
wonder, titters and some vague apprehension. Last week the announcement by a
Chicago physicist that he is assembling a team to produce the first human
clone occasioned yet another wave of Brave New World anxiety. But the
scariest news of all-and largely overlooked-comes from two obscure labs, at
the University of Texas and the University of Bath. During the past four
years, one group created headless mice; the other, headless tadpoles.

For sheer Frankenstein wattage, the purposeful creation
of these animal monsters has no equal. Take the mice. Researchers found the
gene that tells the embryo to produce the head. They deleted it. They did
this in a thousand mice embryos, four of which were born. I use the term
loosely. Having no way to breathe, the mice died instantly.

Why then create them? The Texas researchers want to learn
how genes determine embryo development. But you don’t have to be a genius
to see the true utility of manufacturing headless creatures: for their
organs-fully formed, perfectly useful, ripe for plundering.

Why should you be panicked? Because humans are next.
"It would almost certainly be possible to produce human bodies without
a forebrain," Princeton biologist Lee Silver told the London Sunday
Times. "These human bodies without any semblance of consciousness would
not be considered persons, and thus it would be perfectly legal to keep them
‘alive’ as a future source of organs.

"Alive". Never have a pair of quotation marks
loomed so ominously. Take the mouse-from technology, apply it to humans,
combine it with cloning, and you are become a god: with a single cell taken
from, say, your finger, you produce a headless replica of yourself, a mutant
twin, arguably lifeless, that becomes your own personal, precisely
tissue-matched organ farm.

There are, of course, technical hurdles along the way.
Suppressing the equivalent "head" gene in man. Incubating tiny
infant organs to grow into larger ones that adults could use. And creating
artificial wombs (as per Aldous Huxley), given that it might be difficult to
recruit sane women to carry headless fetuses to their birth/death.

It won’t be long, however, before these technical
barriers are breached. The ethical barriers are already cracking. Lewis
Wolpert, professor of biology at University College, London, finds producing
headless humans "personally distasteful" but, given the shortage
of organs, does not think distaste is sufficient reason not to go ahead with
something that would save lives. And Professor Silver not only sees"
nothing wrong, philosophically or rationally," with producing headless
humans for organ harvesting; he wants to convince a skeptical public that it
is perfectly O.K.

When prominent scientists are prepared to acquiesce in or
indeed encourage-the deliberate creation of deformed and dying quasi-human
life, you know we are facing a bioethical abyss. Human beings are ends, not
means. There is no grosser corruption of biotechnology than creating a human
mutant and disemboweling it at our pleasure for spare parts.

The prospect of headless human clones should put the
whole debate about "normal" cloning in a new light. Normal cloning
is less a treatment for infertility than a treatment for vanity. It is a way
to produce an exact genetic replica of yourself that will walk the earth
years after you’re gone

The headless clone solves the facsimile problem. It is a
gateway to the ultimate vanity: immortality. If you create a real clone, you
cannot transfer your consciousness into it to truly live on. But if you
create a headless clone of just your body, you have created a ready source
of replacement parts to keep you-your consciousness-going indefinitely

Which is why one form of cloning will inevitably lead to
the other. Cloning is the technology of narcissism, and nothing satisfies
narcissism like immortality. Headlessness will be cloning’s achievement.

The time to put a stop to this is now. Dolly moved
President Clinton to create a commission that recommended a temporary ban on
human cloning. But with physicist Richard Seed threatening to clone humans,
and with headless animals already here. We are past the time for toothless
commissions and meaningless bans.

Clinton banned fed4eral funding of human-cloning
research, of which there is none anyway. He then proposed a five-year ban on
cloning. This is not enough. Congress should ban human cloning now. Totally.
And regarding one particular form, it should be draconian: the deliberate
creation of headless humans must be made a crime, indeed a capital crime. If
we flinch in the face of this high-tech barbarity, we’ll deserve to live
in the hell it heralds."